Religion played an important role from the beginning of European exploration and settlement in the New World. Early North Carolina experienced constant tension, though, over religion. In the 1700s the colony developed as an independent place, mostly tolerant of different faiths but ministers and missionaries to the North Carolina colony found spreading religion difficult.

The German religious immigrants known as the Moravians, settled in North Carolina in and around what is now the city of Winston-Salem. Although some groups struggled with the institution of slavery, the Moravians took enslaved Africans and baptized them into the church, allowing them to work, live, and worship together in close quarters.

Chased out of the Caribbean and Charles Town, South Carolina, autumn 1718, the dreaded buccaneer Blackbeard and his fleet needed a safe haven. They found one in the friendly Outer Banks of North Carolina. But authorities hunting pirates knew where to find them and other pirates and renegades.

Just outside Burlington, you can visit the Alamance Battleground State Historic Site. There, North Carolina governor William Tryon and his soldiers defeated a group of reform-minded farmers known as the Regulators in 1771.

Seaman recounts the reasons for and the results of the violent and rebellious attempt by Native Americans living in Eastern North Carolina in 1711 to regain their independence. This period is known as the Tuscarora War.

The mill tells an important story about colonial life and the colonial economy. Colonial mills in the Mountain and Piedmont regions used the energy from water, and wind usually powered the Coastal Plain mills' machinery. These mills were usually grist or sawmills.